When we try, let the slide into harm's way

Hello and welcome to episode 1680 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraft Space Ball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh, a Fangrafts and I'm joined as always by Ben Limber of the Ringra.

Well, that just got my first Pfizer jab, so I'm feeling pretty good. Oh, that makes me so happy. That's great and you're feeling all right.

Yeah, so far it literally just happened. So if they're our side effects, they probably haven't had time to take effect, but I'll take whatever's coming to me because it's worth it.

Yeah, for sure. So you haven't sprouted wings or?

No, but like you, I found it to be a pretty uplifting activity. I think I'm not a church goer, but there were some similarities in this situation.

It was sort of this hushed congregation people were filing in to receive their offerings, seeking some sort of salvation.

There is a sense of gratitude and shared purpose and I felt good about it. I'm writing sort of a secular science high from the whole experience.

Yeah, it's, you know, we goof up a lot of stuff, but we occasionally can come together and achieve pretty cool things. So it is a very nice moment after a very long and hard year.

Here's a segue Joe Musgrove achieved a pretty cool thing on Saturday. Joe Musgrove pitched the first snow hitter in San Diego Padres history.

And I caught the last couple innings and it was a pretty good time. He looked great. He's looked great all year.

He was sort of a popular breakout pick, but it was one of those cases where like, are we sure he's still eligible to be a breakout pick? He's already been a pretty good pitcher, but it was kind of a combination of maybe underperforming his peripherals last season and then leaving the pirates.

So any pitcher who leaves the pirates is just automatically a breakout pick now. So he's had 15 scoreless innings to start this season. I think 31 scoreless consecutive innings dating back to last season.

And he looked nasty even in the late innings, even as he was trying to hold it so that he didn't have to go to the bathroom. And as he was feeling fatigued and throwing a lot fewer fastballs, which I guess he's doing just in general these days, but he looked great and it's quite an achievement for the franchise.

Yeah, it's, you know, no hitters always have an element of luck and they're, you know, they're good defensive plays that keep it moving. And so it's, I think we've maybe gone too far in the direction of thinking like that the luck undermines it somewhat that the perfect game is where it's at.

And no hitters are a time it doesn't and and I would submit that like you know, maybe there that maybe that's true to some extent when you're watching a franchise complete its first one and you can see the guys getting excited about it.

It's a really cool thing. And you know, we've talked about on the show how my, my prior for muskrow of needed updating because my strongest memories of him are when he was with Houston and his performance was up and down.

Then he had really dominant stretches he had less good stretches and then he he disappeared into the void that is Pittsburgh. And I just didn't watch very much of him over the years. And so I assume that he heard that and was like, well, let me show you what I'm up to, Mac. And so far, I got to say I'm pretty impressed.

Yeah, this was not a cheapy like yeah, there were a few defensive plays that helped him out as there always are, but he was one hit by pitch away from the perfect game. Exactly. He looked great. And I kind of wonder like he was sort of overshadowed by the fact that they traded for Blake Snell and you Darvish before they picked up muskrow.

But it was just like a bonus that they got muskrow, but he's looked so good that I wonder if he'll end up being one of the best two of the three that they acquired and just like looking ahead to next year when my clevenger is back and then you've got Darvish Snell clevenger muskrow

and then whoever, I don't know, Gore or Lamette, if he's healthy or paddock or more horn, it's just like a cornucopia of starting pictures. So it's cool for the franchise, especially like, yeah, I mean, not every no hitter is amazing.

It's not always a sterling pitching performance and sometimes it just, you know, they blend together. But in this case, when it breaks a streak of I think 8206 regular season games without a no hitter, it just it seems sort of symbolic.

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